companies work most efficiently when its employee base is happy. Have you ever heard the term demoralized? And how does that happen?

It happens when employees poison the well. What this means is an employee, or group of employees, sways attitudes, on any variety of topics. This decreases productivity company wide when it gets bad enough, and then fires need to be put out.

JOB INTERVIEWSPosted on Sunday, January 31, 2016 1) Amy Cuddy on Body Language. Some terrific observations that can help you in a job interview. Fake it ’til you become it. Thanks to Robert Wenzel.

The individual they showcase is the son of two college professors who is 24 and making 6-figures as a welder in Texas after a 2-year welding degree. Actually you could do that faster at Lincoln Electric outside Cleveland.

It shows what this kid is thinking at the very end. Eventually, he plans to major in metallurgy and conduct welding research. This is smart, but it would be better to get a direct Welding Engineering degree at either Ohio State University or Arizona State. The practical background combined with a degree and a little entrepreneurial hustle should land him in a lucrative consulting career by his late thirties.

RESEARCH a JOB/POSITION? 1. Start here. Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Use this to find out most things related to any job you’re seeking. 2. Labor Market Info. This site is put together by the state of California. It actually looks useful. That link breaks jobs down by county and looks at the job sectors that have produced the most jobs in the 10-year period of 2012-2022. We’re in 2016 [this post was made on 6/3/2016], so this site should provide some insight. General and Operational Managers do very well, coming in at $106,000 for the year in 2014. Certified Nurses also did well, coming in at $93,000. Producers and Directors came in at $104,000. No surprise there. Lawyers topped this field at $153,000. These must be lawyers who work in successful firms, for the lawyers that I’ve heard about [with the exception of a family member] sound like desperate crooks. And the lawyers that I am talking about are the ones inside LAUSD and those who get hired to represent teachers who’ve been railroaded. 3. How Recruiters Use LinkedIn to Find You

Most people spend so much time crafting their pitch, they forget about how they appear in a search result. “It’s the first thing that recruiters look at,” says Nicole Greenberg Strecker, managing director of recruitment agency STA Worldwide in Chicago, Ill. Your bio should include title, industry and location. “If you want to work in Silicon Valley and live in Kansas, change your location to Silicon Valley on LinkedIn. Recruiters search zip codes.” And the title should be razor-sharp. “Don’t write senior analyst at Ernst & Young, write hedge fund financial analyst at Ernst & Young,” says Jeremy Roberts, vice-president of growth and customer success at Hiring Solved, a software company that aggregates information about people for recruiters.

Recruiters punch in keywords, not buzzwords. When fine-tuning their initial search to find high-performing candidates, for instance, they’ll look for terms like “won,” “sold,” “achieved,” “built” and “president’s club.” No software is too old to mention. Technology recruitment consultants look for people who are proficient in WordPress because many companies don’t have the latest programs, Roberts says. And if you use in-demand open-sourced software like Ruby on Rails, say so. “It will save you a lot of spam,” he says; recruiters also recoil at buzzwords like “maven,” “guru,” “prophet” and “ninja” (unless you’re a black belt or a mutant turtle).

Leave a trail of virtual crumbs that lead to your profile. Hiring professionals lurk within LinkedIn industry groups and blogs, says Tamryn M. Hennessy, who runs Career Success Plan, a private practice in Chicago, Ill. advising clients on finding and changing careers. “Join them, especially if you want to change industries,” she says. “It’s a tremendous way to get smart about an industry and get on a recruiter’s radar.” Take part in the conversation, Hennessy adds, but only if you have something to say. Beware of criticism, says Piera Palazzolo, a New York-based marketing professional. “Never complain or express sour grapes,” she says. “It’s not Facebook FB, -1.20% it’s a professional network.”

If a college degree is dead in ten years, then you must find criteria that substitute for a degree. Degrees are for kids whose time isn’t worth much. That’s why they can afford to go to school.

You want a recruiter to recognize your name. You therefore need public positioning. This means a website in the field. You need recognition as a speaker at regional conferences. That’s where you prepare for national conferences.

If you have been out of school for 15 years, but you have a website with 500 articles and 180 book reviews — 12 per year — you have evidence of your presence in your field.

It is clear that you must get into the top 20%. I guarantee you, the 433 million users of LinkedIn are not all in the top 20%.

If you are salaried, you need to get outside the salary trap. It’s the realm of algorithms. You must branch out. To rely on social media is close to futile. There are too many “also rans.”

It’s better to start your own side business than to rely on social media. If the only way to stand out is by an algorithm, you won’t get the best job. The best jobs are filled with people who have performed. The odds of getting an interview based on screening by algorithms is minimal.

The recruiter who relies on LinkedIn and Facebook is relying on algorithms. You need to deal with someone higher in the chain of company. LinkedIn is not an old boy network. It is a wanna-be network.

Use social media to back up your website/YouTube channel. The recruiter may use these to validate you. But if he must use them to find you, it’s the wrong job in the wrong company.

SIDE HUSTLES (1210) 1. This is a good WAY to start. Indeed is one of the better job boards. Here all I did was type in the amount I’d like to make per day, and Indeed produced the following jobs around the country. You may or may not be qualified for any of these, and the ad often overtsates what you can earn. At least it puts you in the ballpark of where you want to be to have the lifestyle you want to have. Prices are key. Prices allow you to set goals with more efficiency. Try $500/day. Good luck. 2. Ever try TaskRabbit? 3. 2017 Top selling services at Fiverr. From what I can see, Fiverr benefits those in the graphic design market best–from logos to flyers to brochures, etc. WordPress gigs don’t do too bad. 4. 5.